


refero

by GreaterGood (1oveclub)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Arguing, M/M, Makeup Sex, Not Canon Compliant, Porn with Feelings, i guess, idk - Freeform, its not even porn guys, porn with more plot than I’m used to writinf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 08:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18116759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1oveclub/pseuds/GreaterGood
Summary: Albus knows many things, and yet still sometimes feels as if he knows nothing.What he does know is this: He’s only ever belonged in one place.Or: Albus visits Gellert in Nurmengard, sometimes.Most times, he hates to leave.





	refero

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks judgementalfishnun on tumblr for making me think about this all day to the point of ope, gotta write it.

The heels of Albus’s boots are deafeningly loud on the marble floor of the hallway. The echo of it always chills him to the bone. It’s always the first and last thing he hears, as he visits. 

The room is dark and sullen as soon as he cracks open the door. The only source of light is a dying fire in the fireplace, and the air smells of bourbon and cigarettes. 

Albus takes in the scene before him, everything in various stages of disarray. The sheets have been pulled from the mattress and one of the pillows sliced open and spilling feathers everywhere. The desk across the room is upturned itself, and loose-leaf papers lie scattered around everywhere. There’s a shattered bottle of ink leaving a stain in the middle of the carpet. 

He sighs and pulls his cloak off, dropping it onto the sofa, and waves his hand, setting everything back right. There’s nothing he can do about the spilled ink, but he vanishes the stain and sweeps the broken glass into a bin with a flick of his wrist.

He turns on his heel then, to face Gellert. Slumped down in his chair with a cigarette burning half way down, and a glass in the other, he stares back at Albus blankly.

“You’re drunk,” Albus says. It isn’t a question. 

“You’re fucking late, you pompous bastard,” Gellert drawls, words slurred and slow. “Don’t you have a class to teach?”

Moving over to the fire, Albus rolls his sleeves and crouches down. He reaches for the poker and begins to stroke the smoldering wood, bringing the fire back to life. 

He hums and twitches a finger to accelerate the flames, then looks over his shoulder before he rises and turns once more.

“You’re drunk and mean, then. Fantastic. This is always pleasant, Gellert.”

It’s disappointing and hurtful, to say the least. They don’t get much time together, when they do this. Albus can’t risk being gone for long, and he certainly can’t risk being unreachable. He’s sure that, however thankful they are at the Ministry, there are still eyes on his every move. He hadn’t held up his whole end of the deal, exactly. He had known all along, though, that he wouldn’t. He had known that, in the end, he’s only ever had one weakness. 

Now, it sits before him: liquored up and truculent. 

“Go fuck yourself, Albus.” 

His accent is always thicker when he drinks, harsher when he’s angry.

Albus slips his hands into his pockets and stands there for a moment, their eyes locked together. He rocks on his heels, backward and forward, and then takes a step or two closer to Gellert’s hunched form. He lifts the half full glass out of Gellert’s fingers and rises it to his nose, inhaling the stout aroma. He sips it and cringes, never having liked the stuff, then sets it up on the mantle. 

“I’m sorry that I’m late,” he admits quietly, perching on the armrest of Gellert’s chair. His back is turned now, so he can’t see the other man’s face, but he continues. “I was teaching a class, yes. Have we spoken since I’ve taken over Transfiguration? It’s quite recent, so I doubt it. It would seem that the headmaster, as well as the ministry believe that it would be a more suitable position for me.” 

He laughs, but it’s humorless even to himself. He hears Gellert snort with indifference. He drops a hand down to rest on Gellert’s knee, the one that’s crossed over the other. 

“Anyway. Maybe they’re right. Maybe…” he shakes his head. “Maybe they’re right.” 

He hasn’t wanted to admit it, but even sitting here now, he sees it. His secrets have been aired, the metaphorical cat let out of the bag. They know about his thirst for power; about his illicit affair with temptation itself. He knows it as well. He can’t be trusted with these types of things. It eats at his conscious and it frays his nerves to be so acutely aware of his own flaws. Even as he sits here now, he’s proving a point to himself: he can’t resist. 

They sit there in silence for a long moment or two, Albus stroking his thumb over Gellert’s knee as he contemplates. When he turns to look at Gellert, his head is tipped back against the chair, and his eyes are closed. Albus can’t help but laugh to himself. He plucks the burned out cigar from Gellert’s fingers and drops it into the ashtray. 

“Come on, darling,” he says, lifting a palm to stroke Gellert’s bearded face. His hair has grown too, curling like when they were kids and graying at the temples and part. He looks about as wildly unkempt as Albus has ever seen him, but he’s still as beautiful as ever, Albus thinks, and rubs his thumb between his eyebrows to smooth out the worry line. 

It just makes him frown more, though. 

“Hours,” he says sleepily, like it makes sense. 

“What?” Albus asks softly, petting his hair back out of his face. 

“Hours,” Gellert repeats, “you were late by hours. I thought… I thought you’d-”

“Hey, no,” Albus interrupts, leaning in to kiss the furrow off his brow. “I was late. For that, my love, I am sorry. But I would not think of breaking a promise to you.” 

This, it seems, is enough to soothe Gellert’s worry. His face relaxes and he turns his cheek into Albus’s palm, wanting. Something deep inside of Albus’s chest aches then, for the young boys that they once were, and for the men that they have grown into. It aches over the earnesty in Gellert’s face and the vulnerability that is so apparent there, now. 

“Come on,” he repeats, kissing his forehead once more and taking his hands to help him up. “Let’s get you in bed.” 

After that, Gellert goes easily. He allows Albus to guide him to the bed, and to help him undress. He’s careful, and he presses sweet kisses to all the places that he can. Once Gellert’s boots and socks have been removed, and his trousers are folded tidily on the trunk, Albus sits down beside him in the bed. 

Gellert’s arm extends toward him, searching for something until he finds Albus’s elbow and curls his fingers around it. Albus leans into the touch, laying back against the pillows and raising his arm to allow Gellert under it. He curls in against Albus’s side, face half hidden in the crook of his neck. Albus presses a gentle kiss to his forehead. 

Times like these are rare. Gellert is well-guarded, he has been since they first met. Even then, his affection wasn’t given freely. Now, though, even Albus admits that he has good reason to be reluctant. He loathes to admit it, but the dissension between them has driven a wedge and filled the space with suspicion and wariness that didn’t exist back then. 

“What kept you?” Gellert asks, finally. His voice is softer, more even. 

Albus expected it. 

“They know,” he answers, eventually. “I don’t know how, or to what extent, but they’re suspicious of my disappearances, and looking for any excuse to keep me under their thumb. I suspect there’s a trace on magical travel, as far as I’m concerned. I had to use muggle transportation to leave the country.”

Gellert raises his head to look him in the eye, indignation written all over his face. 

“So, what? They presume to keep you locked up in that school the same way that they keep me here?”

Albus smiles smiles at him, sadly. 

“It would seem so.”

Gellert scoffs. 

“As if there were a chance that you’d go through the trouble to undo what you’ve already done. I’d hope that I’d be the first to know if you’d been having second thoughts about our little… arrangement, here.” He speaks coldly, but he hasn’t moved away. His eyes are clearer, now. Albus suspects that perhaps he wasn’t as drunk before as he’d first thought.

Still, Albus looks away guiltily. 

Gellert doesn’t miss it. 

“Are you?” He questions, hesitating. 

“It’s not that simple,” Albus answers, honestly. “I never wanted this, Gellert.” He drags his fingers through the mess of curly hair under them. “You should know that, at least.”

“It never is, is it?”

Albus had been prepared for another argument, but Gellert simply relaxes back into him. His eyes sting with tears that he knows won’t come, and his heart aches with something that won’t ever quite make itself clear to him. There’s guilt and remorse, he knows. Regret is his constant companion, these days. He remembers speaking those words to Leta Lestrange, so many years ago. They aren’t any less true, now. There’s nostalgia, too. Underneath all of it though, he knows, there’s a desperate, unconditional love that burns yet inside of him and won’t allow itself to be expelled. 

He closes his eyes for a moment, letting the silence settle over them. 

“If I could,” he whispers, turning his face back toward Gellert and speaking into his hair, “you’d be the first to know. You’d be the only one to know. And neither of us would be here, now.” 

There’s a moment where they both seem to take this in. 

It shocks Albus, he’s sure, as much as it does Gellert. 

And then, they’re kissing. 

Gellert’s hands are on his face, and he’s half on top of Albus, desperately kissing him, clinging to him. Albus holds onto him, kissing back with the same fervor, the same frantic need that they both feel. Gellert’s kisses are biting, his hands are rough in his hair, and Albus knows that it’s meant to be punishing in its own way. He takes his penance without question. He deserves both everything and nothing that Gellert will give him. 

He feels his arms being pushed back against the pillows, tight grip on his wrists and Gellert’s mouth claiming the skin of his neck, his throat. He can’t fight it. He doesn’t want to. He feels Gellert’s fingers working his tie open, pulling at his waistcoat until all the buttons pop and his shirt follows. He groans into the dark, feeling teeth scrape his chest and catch on one of his nipples. It hurts, and it sends hot arousal shooting down his spine, pooling in his pelvis and stiffening his cock. Gellert’s hand finds its way between his legs, letting Albus’s free and cupping the bulge in his trousers, rubbing at it in time with the bruising kisses that he leaves all down Albus’s abdomen. Gellert undoes his fly so fast that, did he not know better, he’d suspect him of using magic. He gets a hand in Gellert’s hair and can’t help the way that his hips cant up in search of friction. He doesn’t have to wait long. Gellert gets his trousers down and his fingers wrapped around Albus’s cock, his hot mouth around the head so tight and good that Albus chokes on a moan and tugs his hair nearly clean out of his scalp. There’s no pretense about it, Gellert gets right to the point. He takes Albus down deep, sucks him hard and uses his hands to grip and fondle and stroke just the way that he likes, the way that brings him to the edge in what feels like seconds and eternities. When Albus finishes, with a desperate cry and his hand on the back of Gellert’s head, Gellert swallows it all. 

Albus tugs him back up carefully, petting his hair back out of his face and caressing his bearded jaw. Gellert kisses him and Albus can taste himself in his mouth, bitter and overwhelming. He licks into Gellert’s mouth and sucks the taste from his tongue as he works his hand down between them. Gellert gasps into Albus’s mouth when he first wraps his fingers around him. He’s already hard- thick and hot in Albus’s palm, wet at the tip when he rubs his thumb across. He strokes Gellert with practiced confidence, their foreheads pressed together, eyes baring into each other’s, panting into one another’s mouths. He loves this. He loves Gellert’s flushed cheeks and his lust-ridden heavy eyes, and the way he moans when Albus presses his thumb right up under the head of his cock and into the vein. 

“Come, love,” Albus whispers into his mouth, listening to his shuddering breaths, and Gellert does. He gasps and splatters Albus’s wrist with it, covers his hand and drips onto his hip below as he trembles through the shock of it. 

Gellert laughs breathlessly, and Albus finds that he can’t help but smile too, giddy with post-sex endorphins and the nearness of Gellert’s body to his own.

Albus whispers a quick cleaning charm and kisses him again, wrapping his arms around Gellert and drawing their bodies closer together. Gellert tucks his face back into Albus’s neck, wrapping around him and melding together. 

They fall asleep like that, eventually. 

When Albus wakes, it’s still dark outside the window to the east. He looks around, then over to Gellert, who’s turned away from him and is sleeping soundly, snoring softly. Albus reaches out and rubs the knuckle of his index finger along the knobs of his spine, feather-light. 

It’s always hard to say goodbye, so he usually doesn’t. 

Deep down, Albus knows, he is both weak, and a coward.

He rises carefully, tugging his trousers back on and buckling his belt. He’s not sure if it’s late hours of the night, or early hours of the morning, but he does know that he should return soon. If he’s careful, no one will even know he’s been out. He pulls his ruined shirt on and looks around the room for his traveling cloak, tossed over the back of the sofa, closer to the door. He just begins to stand when he feels a hand on his back, clutching at his shirt. 

“Don’t go,” Gellert says. It’s quiet, and Albus could almost get away with pretending not to have heard it, if he wanted. He turns to look at his lover, still half facing the other way. 

“I must, darling,” he says, but he leans over and rubs his nose against the skin under Gellert’s ear. “I’ve a train to catch, if I want to be back by morning.”

Gellert is silent for a few seconds, so Albus strokes his arm and begins to pull away. When he turns, his eyes are wet. 

Albus’s chest tightens at the sight. The part of his heart that still remains in tact shatters in the moment. 

“Gellert-” he starts, and is interrupted. 

“Not yet,” Gellert begs, “I know you must, but just… not yet.” 

Albus has known heartache in his life, but never like the sight of Gellert pleading with him. Not like this. He runs his hand through his own hair, fingers snagging where it’s tangled and tied at the nape of his neck, and then over his mouth, and his bearded chin. 

He knows that there’s no fight left in him where Gellert is concerned. His heart belongs here. 

He waits a beat, and then toes his boots off again, and crawls back into bed, wrapping himself around Gellert’s back and burying his face in his soft hair. He rests his hand against Gellert’s bare chest, palm to his heart, and feels Gellert’s hand cover it. 

Albus knows many things, and still sometimes feels as if he knows nothing. 

What he does know is this: He’s only ever belonged in one place. 

It’s here.


End file.
